Learning How To Live With Life
by Le Sang-Froid
Summary: When life becomes too hard for a scorned lover, will she turn to the dark side to get what she deserves? Or will a certain Arabian and his group of Assassins save her from herself?
1. Prologue

Learning How To Live With Life

We were still learning how to fight - how to cope with life after this huge cataclysm. Danger was on our heels at every turn, we simply just didn't know how to find the strength to continue on. What were we even fighting for in the first place? It seems like now all that I see is a scarred palm and bruised arms. What possessed me to venture that far? I don't believe I should ever know.

* * *

><p>AN: Okay, I know that I'm new at this and stuff, but this is the prologue for I suppose my first fanfic. Lol, it's supposed to be on Assassin's Creed, yet set in modern times. Please do not rip my head off if I get something wrong, haha.


	2. La Chagrin

Learning How To Live With Life

Chapter I: La Chagrin

The morning rays of sunlight feebly attempted to pierce the heavy drapes of midnight blue, failing miserably. I had laid in my bed half of the early morning hours, simply just waiting for the inspiration to get out of bed and continue with my life. Propping my head up some, I tried to glare at my clock, but, frustrated, I threw my head back down into the pillows. A sigh crossed my lips as I realized that today was the day I was supposed to get married.

_**Supposed**_. My fiancé had passed away just a couple months ago, apparently from an "accident." How could I believe that? Seriously? A single, solitary tear began to roll down my cheek, halting when it came to the opening of my night-shirt. That was the first time I had ever cried about him- about Robert.

But I suppose I'm being extremely too vague. What? With a life like mine, specifics don't really matter. Sometimes it takes all the strength I can muster to not fall off of the deep end. Everything's too complicated.

"Sister!" a tiny voice called out, "sister!" Rolling my eyes, I climbed out of my royal blue bed to open the door for my baby nephew. He always insisted on calling me, "sister," because his own parents died a mysterious death, leaving my mother to care for him. Poor kid. But Todd was my baby, my light in the aftershock of Robert's death. Fancy that death brought us two closer together.

"What is it?" I cooed, putting on the face the old women do whenever they see a baby in Wal-Mart. "Play," my nephew replied, a long string of gibberish flowing behind him. Todd reached up and clasped a fistful of my dark brown hair, beginning to tug. Slapping his hand, I let out a fierce, "no!" while he screamed Bloody Mary to the top of his lungs. Aside from being cute, my nephew was also quite the spoiled child.

"Go on," I started, lightly sending him to my mother, who, due to the circumstances, fled to the end of the hallway. Mom was terrifed he'd have flashbacks this early on of how his parents died. We didn't know how nor when they died, but we do know it wasn't all that pretty. I can faintly remember the police telling us that nothing was left of my brother except few mangled pieces of flesh. My sister-in-law wasn't even that fortunate: they never found her body.

Pulling my rich hair back, I tied it with a simple white ribbon and slowly proceeded to get ready. My wardrobe held such beautiful clothing, but I was extremely reluctant to wear any of it. That entire wardrobe was all that I had left of Robert; he bought me all of those clothes for our too-good-to-be-true honeymoon. What a proper phrase. I always dreamed of having all the things Robert promised me, things like love, affection, a true, bonded family. His death left more than just a full dresser of unused clothes, but also a heart that was torn at the seam. A heart that had no hope for tomorrow, mainly because my tomorrow was drearier than my today.

* * *

><p>"We leave in ten hours," Altaïr growled from his chair, effectively scaring off our researcher, Aimée LeBlanc. "Ten hours?" Ezio drawled, "don't you think we should go a little sooner, maggiore?" The aggravation was sprawled across his face as plain as day.<p>

"I do not see any infallibility in departing ten hours from this time," Aimée stated, her accent loaded down with a slight French pronouciation. Ezio rolled his eyes as Aimée smoothed back her pale blonde curls, with every other Assassin in the room scrutinizing her - except Altaïr. No, Altaïr often exalted Aimée upon a pedestal due to her almost always siding with him. Always. Aimée was his..."pet," if you will.

Me? Well, I'd like to say that I attended Le Cordon Bleu and that I have, at the minimum, ten degrees in the culinary arts, but I don't. No, I'm the cook: I'm, to say in the least, Haineux. Or at least, that's what everyone else calls me. My actual name is Jasper Church, but precious Aimée decided, that, by my naturally hateful nature, my name was Haineux. How lovely.

And I'm not only _**just **_the cook, I'm also the bitch. Apparently, I have to do everything that my amazing superiors tell me to do: I'm the servant. Misunderstood my ass! I do everything around here!

"Haineux, Haineux," someone called. Deciding to ignore them, I propped my legs up into my seat. At the moment we were in some sort of meeting, discussing when and where we were supposed to ambush the Templar agents. By now, I could possibly say that we, as a group, had been all over the United States. Along we way we found abandoned houses, vacation houses, and at the current moment, a motel in the middle of nowhere.

"Haineux," the voice called again, this time a bit more fiercely. "Okay, fine, bambino," and with that phrase I was pushed off of the rolling computer chair and straight away into the floor. "EZIO!" I screamed, causing Altaïr to halt mid-sentence and stare me down. This was not going to go over well.

"Seriously?" Altaïr asked, cocking an ebony brow and clenching his teeth. "Do you two need some alone time?" He asked, sarcasm dripping from his tone. Ezio looked ashamed, but I held my head high, a smirk on my lips. "No, we get enough of that on our missions," I retorted curtly. "Watch yourself," Ezio whispered into my ear: it might as well as been telling a pyschotic crack-head he couldn't do coke anymore.

But something inside me instantly simmered my anger down, or at least my frustration, leading me back to take notes like the good little bitch I am. Sometimes I get tired of this, this entire mission to bring the Templars down. Other times it's almost fun, to say in the least. Maybe my affections had something to do with it? I don't know. But I do, most definitely do know that Ezio Auditore da Firenze was sure as hell not sharing a bed with me tonight!


	3. Le Désespoir

Chapter II: Le Désespoir

The hopelessness was imminent, I was driven to the razor's edge. Things had simply fallen too far out of my control, out of my domain. Things that had fallen into a whirlpool of insanity, swallowed up by the hateful silence that mustered complete inmobility, providing me a fall from grace, a fall from the façade I had surrounded myself with. This silence showed me that, in all respect, I wasn't bound to a man, to a family, to anybody. I was alone in this world and I knew it. I knew it from the depths of my soul that whatsoever came up against me, anything, would swallow me whole.

Depression knew no master, as he came riding in upon his black steed. He offered me petty jabs, stinging insults, and replies to the questions I didn't have the strength to ask. I'm broken, alone, and frightened. Not even Todd, my sweet and precious Todd, can fight off these fearful shadows that I have to carry each and everyday. For a woman who always seemed to picture herself alone, I finally understood: I finally grasped the concept that I was no longer in control of my life; I was no longer alone, either. Fear was my companion. Fear was my guide. Fear was the ultimate power in life, and I had no such power over him.

* * *

><p>It was midnight, the stars twinkling in the distance. Beside the bed I was currently sharing with Aimée, there was an outlet. Reaching over to plug my laptop into the wall, the damn outlet shocked the living hell out of me! With a loud, and somewhat girlish, scream, I jumped clear across the bed, over onto the unaware, sleeping Aimée.<p>

"Sainte Marie!" Aimée cursed, her shrill voice awakening Ezio from his nest on the floor. Altaïr was already up, leaning against the headboard of his bed with a complacent smirk. His golden eyes were my object of study, holding innumerable secrets. His eyes were normally just a gold shade, like the sun. But now his eyes were like a heated furnace, the gold shimmering inside. I wonder what he's thinking.

Ezio crawled out from beneath his warm blankets, shivered, and came to sit on the bed with me and Aimée. "What?" I asked grouchily. "Nothing," he said, not at all offended by my rude tone of voice; it was normality here. "Just wondering why you two decided to have a shouting contest," he paused for a moment, staring at the clock, "at twelve o'clock in the morning."

His calm, carefree tone was seriously pissing me off.

"Do you mind, Monsieur Ezio?" Aimée piped up, saving Ezio from a major bawling-out session. Such a sweet young girl, makes me sick.

"Mind what?" the dimwit asked innocently, batting his eyes like a complete retard. "Do you mind getting off of _**my**_ side of the bed? If you and Haineux want to go cuddle up together and consult your differences, I suggest you do it on _**his **_side of the bed. Preferably with the lights off, too," Aimée demanded feistily, with every ounce and pound of spiciness she could muster.

That bitch. I'm not gay. Well, I've had experiences, but who hasn't? And surely to God, Ezio isn't gay. Or is he? Now that I think about it, I did catch him watchi-no, oogling Altaïr as he worked out yesterday. _**Shirtless. **_Yeah, Ezio's gay.

"Well, my dearest Aimée," I began, "I'm certainly not...fruity. But Ezio here, eh, maybe you can hook him up with one of your guy friends?" I retorted with an evil smirk on my lips. Altaïr just shook his head at the ongoing scene.

"Enough," Altaïr butted in, freezing Aimée's half-formed, certainly witty remark in seconds. "Leave Ezio in peace," he continued, "plus, it's none of our business if he does fancy men." With two reluctant shakes of the head, Aimée and I apologized to Ezio, who, by the way, _**denied**_ our claims of him being homosexual and crawled back to bed. What an amazing night of accusations.

* * *

><p>However, the next day came quickly, prodding Altaïr to wake us an hour and thirty minutes before the actual time we got up - 6:45 A.M. I suppose it's the price we were going to have to pay for bickering half of the night. Oh, well.<p>

As with having to cook every meal of the day, I also had to do my own grocery shopping, simply because Altaïr was the boss, Ezio was too lazy, and Aimée was too busy researching. So I took the only available car there was in the parking lot - due to my great lock-picking skills I learnt from Ezio - and struggled to find an open grocery store.

It was about seven when I left, promising a breakfast meal at least before seven-thirty. The time on the clock said it was eight-fifteen at the moment. I had to find something! Either a gas station or a quick-stop or something. But it was to no avail. Nothing was open and, if on the rare occasion that they were, the patrons were out of all the food. To say in the least, I was royally screwed to not have found _**anything **_on my culinary expedition.

Just thinking of heading back to the motel gave me a migraine, prodding me to commit some source of suicide. I could always run away, but with Altaïr knowing this region like the back of his hand, I know he'd find me sooner or later. So I waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. By now it was ten in the morning, and that's when I found the Wal-Mart. The Wal-Mart with an Abstergo sign.


	4. Lié

Learning How To Live With Life

Chapter III: Lié

A fierce smile crossed my face as I slowly realized that in order to get my group food, I'd have to infiltrate that Abstergo-controlled Wal-Mart. Slowly, I inched my car into the surprisingly full lot, struggling to find a parking place. It seemed as if nothing would open, as I had been driving around in bored little circles for quite some time now, often giggling to myself out of insanity.

Get a hold of yourself, I thought. You are not some cheap, psychotic freak. You are Haineux. You are a messed up, over emotional, self-righteous, jealous prick who hates the thought of ever losing the limelight. That is who you are. That's who you'll always be. Strange, it is, to be filled with a world full of dangerous factions whom disagree on each other's every whim, who bring biased differences into world wars. To be surrounded by all of this, literally, and I'm having an identity crisis?

You see, I was never any of these things until high school happened. It was my freshmen year, the year I was supposed to have started my fun journey into the upperclassmen world. How sadly mistaken was I? The people at school were cruel, even my long-time "friends," that I had procured since kindergarten. Whenever I would walk down the hallways, especially at lunch, people would call me a fag, homo, or tranny. It bothered me for the rest of my stay at high school, but I learnt to bury deep down and to never recall what they said to me. If I didn't hear it, it wasn't true: it never occurred.

"Quit talking to yourself," I muttered to the air, obviously frustrated. The smell from this nasty ass car wasn't helping out, either. "You are not bound to lies and rumors. You are not!" I chanted beneath my breath, hoping this mantra would do something to change the subject. Everyone's prey to their own mind, though. One day, all is well. The next, all hell's done broke loose. It's common psychological theory that you are your worst enemy, simply because you know every facet about yourself; all of your weaknesses are spread out before you; and the feeble control we humans have over our tongues obviously doesn't cover enough ground to hide each and every dirty secret. Honestly, it's common fact.

But, by the grace of God, I found a parking space in the third or fourth row, close to the building. That itself was enough of a miracle, especially because its Wal-Mart.

Anyway, casually strolling inside, I kept myself on high alert to anything that could potentially harm me or the other Assassins in the long and short run. Attempting to slowly scurry to the market section was anything but simple, yet somehow I made it to my destination unharmed. By now, I was so nervous I had thrown in everything I could find in my little area - even the Barbie doll that some little girl was obviously forced to leave behind.

Even though the store's parking lot was crowded, it didn't seem like anything special was going on for all these people to be here. And then I realized, only one-third of these people were actually shopping, the others just roamed around like restless zombies. In fact, I was beyond creeped out when I witnessed a faux granny fight in the toy aisle, or maybe that was real?

Pushing myself to the check-out, I was met with a brunet, tanned casa nova waiting to service me. Although there were tons of pulsating lines that looked as if they weren't getting any progress, his line was non-existant. No one was trying to fight to get to the counter next, and nobody seemed as if they'd noticed the poor guy.

So of course I pushed my buggy up to his counter, hoping to achieve my goal of getting in safely and checking out unscathed. However, as soon as I had halted my buggy by the counter, I recognized his face. This was my main tormentor - the one who caused me so much trauma and pain in my high school experience. Damn him! Damn! Damn! Damn!

"Can I help you today, sir?" he asked inquisitively, taking in my pale face's annoyance. Gritting my teeth, I nodded my head firmly, hoping he'd get the message that I **did not **want to talk to him.

"You look kind of aggravated today," commented the dimwit, my irritation rising to higher levels. He did not get the message.

"Part of my everyday life," I replied quickly, trying to limit the amount of conversation I was emitting. Enemies knew how to use this to their advantages.

"Ah," he started, "you must be very...busy." Busy my ass. I had feces with more intelligence than him. "Yes," I stated, simultaneously bending over to pull out the contents of my buggy. "Yes, I'm very, very busy," I continued, hoping he'd at least get the idea that I wanted to get out of here; that I had things I had to take care of.

Of course not. By this time my mind was starting to drift off, going ten thousand seperate directions as to what I should cook when I got home. "Umm, sir?" the obviously insane retard asked me, biting his lip like a little kid. "Are you sure you want to purchase this Barbie? You look kind of...grown out of it," the brunet questioned, holding the doll in question above his head.

"It's for my niece," I blurted out, trying any which way to shut him up. My cold, cruel, calculating tone had intensifyed even more, somewhat prodding the former ex-enemy to hurry up.

Finally, after at least twenty minutes of waiting, the retard wished me a good morning and hoped I would come back soon. However, as soon as I began to push my buggy past the little stands Wal-Mart has reserved for beverages, stupid came bounding up beside me, asking ten thousand different questions.

"Do I know you for somewhere?" "Are you sure I don't know you?" "What's your name? I know it starts with a 'J'." "Didn't we go to high school together? See, it's me, Desmond!"

"What in the hell are you doing?" I questioned. Desmond froze. "Can you not see that I obviously _**don't**_ want to talk to you? It was bad enough when we were in high school," I murmured, turning on my heel and stalking out the door. Leaving a shocked Desmond in place, I attempted to search for the car I had stolen, when, out of nowhere, Desmond came right on my heels.

"Do you mind, at all?" I furiously asked, slamming my hand down on the buggy. I wasn't even going to bother turning around to face him. He wasn't worth my time anymore. "I've got one question, that it's," Desmond replied, "I swear."

"Make it quick, I've got things to do and people to see." Which, all in all, it wasn't a blatant faced lie.

"Are you single?"

Holy shit. Holy shit! He did _**not**_ just ask me, of all damn people, if I was single! Holy hell! "Would you like to die today? Is that really what your aiming for here?" I asked through clenched teeth, my face turning red with embarrassment and anger.

"I have a friend who you may be interested in. She lost her husban-fiancé a couple months ago and now she's trying to get over him. Maybe if you didn't want to do it, then one of your friends could?"

Oh my God, oh holy Jesus, he knows about Ezio and Altaïr. He knows what we're doing here, and I wouldn't put it beneath him, but his little dumbass would probably just mention the Assassin's Creed right in the middle of an Abstergo/Wally World parking lot!

"Come on, your coming with me," I said gruffly, pulling Desmond along by the back of the shirt. Fortunately, he complied, not really putting up any types of fighting. Unfortunately, the armed guards - holy freakin' hell - had just begun their patrols around the perimeter. Surely, surely to God they won't see me.

"HEY! HEY YOU THERE! WITH THE GUY!" They screamed from across the long, black pavement lot. In the distance, I could see them running after me, the heat rising from the ground making it look like an action movie.

"Oh, shit." I cursed, causing Desmond to look up. "Get in the damn car! Now! And take some of these groceries with you!" I yelled, the guards getting closer each second. Jumping into the nasty ass car myself, I fumbled with the wires, trying to find the right ones. Of course, it was about three minutes later, with the imminent fear of prision bars in my face, that I was pulling out of the lot. My foot hit the pedal all the way to the floor, and I closed my eyes. I didn't know just how fast this thing could go. To be honest, it terrified me.

Desmond, however, looked almost calm. Dimwit. He didn't make any noises and kept his hands in his lap, oddly quiet. Maybe a quiet Desmond was more fearful than a talkative one.

* * *

><p>Pulling into the parking lot at the motel, Desmond surprisingly didn't ask any questions about why I was here. More importantly, he didn't ask any questions about the three hungry, utterly pissed off Assassins standing up on the porch-like thing outside of our room. Thank God for Wal-Mart, even if it is Abstergo-controlled.<p> 


End file.
